I love games.
Especially the kinds that children play.
All the variations of Tag and Chase and Hide and Go Seek, Ring Around the Rosie, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, Duck Duck Goose.
Musical Chairs.
Now musical Chairs is interesting. What do we do when there aren’t enough seats? We march around until the music stops and make a mad dash for a chair, one person is always out, and one more chair is always taken away after each turn.
There is never enough. It is down, right Darwinian, only the fit and the lucky survive. A lesson in scarcity and demand with a chance to work out all the wiggle worms.
I saw this one version of musical chairs where only the chairs are removed after each turn, and all the people remain, trying to fit everyone onto fewer and fewer chairs, a lesson in cooperation, that looks a lot like a game of Pile On, with the exciting possibility of Breaking a Chair!
Jesus came to dinner, and they played musical chairs. The grown up version. Who got the best seat? They were all watching each other trying to maneuver into the seat of honor. Jesus plays along, he says the best way to be honored is to be asked to move up higher and to avoid the embarrassment of being told to move down to the lowest seat. It was a lesson in basic social maneuvering and etiquette, advanced musical chairs, nothing unusual.
But then Jesus starts to talk about a different game.
It isn’t about Where to Sit, or Grabbing the Best Seat, or Getting Somebody Out, it is about Making the Most Room.
It isn’t about seeking honor, it is about giving honor to those who are left out.
A different kind of game, different rules, different etiquette.
It is about the etiquette of God’s Kingdom, the Resurrection Games.
We follow the movement of God through the Cross to the Resurrection, humbling leading to elevation, honoring others leading to exaltation, of making room leading to the kingdom without end.
Jesus speaks parables about the Resurrection Games, inviting us each to make our lives parables of resurrection, of finding more and more seats until no one is left out, of seeking out ways to honor those who have been left behind in the game of musical chairs that we all play. Jesus just keeps adding chairs faster than we can fill them up. Where does it end?
This is a different game, a different parable, the Resurrection Games, chairs and people everywhere! Tag you’re it!